English Writing Tests

Well done to the room 13 students who sat the Australian writing competition recently, we have this week received the certificates and results. Some sound results for room 13

Hanna Ott - High Distinction (top 1% of entries)Her certificate and award announced at assembly in her absense

Malcolm McIver - Distinction

Zoe Noble - Credit

Amazing Race Japan

Well this week everyone has been working hard on all team tasks and it has been great to see everyone helping eachother out with the road block of Oragami Crame making, well done. Bella went the extra distance for her food task this week impressing all with her home made sushi - a super effort here, and great tasting!!
Next week we are heading to China and I will be looking for peoples ability to use google earth to locate and present their information - good luck!

Otago Rugby Visitors

Today we had Hoani Matenga and John Legg from the Otago Rugby team come and visit us, and room 24 joind us also. It was pretty cool to have them along and it was good to see Hoani again from when he worked in our class. We were able to ask them lots of questions about life as a professional rugby player. We were lucky enough to get a team poster each and their autographs. Jordan had a deal with Hoani from earlier in the season he could get a pair of Hoani's old boots and he did, lucky Jordan. It was interesting to hear about what they did in a week.
By Clayton & Liam

Visiting Speakers

Last thursday a group of year 8-11 students came to our class to talk about our water ways, native animals in danger and how to pretect them. Soon they are going to Australia to teach some students about New Zealand and the native animals here and all about the water ways like what they told us.
The students whent to Quarantine Island for a conference and were replanting some trees and plants and trying to mantian them. They also talked about stream polluting and how TO stop it. Very interesting and similar to some of the stuff we are doing.
Liam & Clayton

Destination..Australia Week 2 Amazing Race

Well a great effort put into teams tasks for the NZ work. Some groups have worked fantastically together speading out the workload and all doing their part as a good team should, some groups have learnt that some of their team members need to lift their game a little in order to not let the team down when it comes to marking and sharing time of the weeks work, DOn't let your self be the weakest link! So another week ahead of team work and research to complete tasks for THURSDAY marking as we have a short week coming up. Remember a champion team will always beat a team of champions. Good luck with the challenge this week.

Espana!! Hanna Ott

Buenos dias, room 13!
Spain-a bubbly, golden pancake, surrounded by a blueberry sea. That was my first impression as we flew over the warm country that was our next stop. We caught a train from Valencia to Castellon de la Plana. It took us an hour to get there, and it would take us another 20 minutes to get to our house in Grao… and that when it was 28 degrees Celsius! The taxi dropped us off at a small cottage with 3 noisy dogs next door. A curtain of rubber strings hung in front of the wooden door, and all the windows had mozzy nets. It’s a three-bedroom house, and in contrast to Helsinki I can have my own room (yay!). Spain is very different to Finland anyway, because there everything is cool and green and forest-coated, and here everything is dry and red and bare. The people here talk loudly and all the time! There are over 20 dogs in our street, (including a pug who can’t bark properly,) and a beach 10 minutes away. The weather here is great and the water is warm, but the season‘s already over and there’s almost no one at the beach.
Hasta luego from Hanna.

Stream test for Week 1 Term 4

Today we did our weekly stream testing at the kaikorai stream for the first time this term. We saw some ducks and ducklings and also a few chickens. The water temperature was around 10.9 degrees celcius?? we all had a great time and are learning a lotTthe dissolved oxygen was 2ppm witch is fatal to most living things.
by Clayton and Liam

Week 1 Term 4!! Amazing Race Start....

Well term 4 is all set to go and this week sees the start of the "Amazing Race" homeworka nd teamwork tasks for this term. The country we are starting in is NEW ZEALAND as we all live here and will be departing from here at the end of the week to the next destination. This week your challenges and tasks in your team will have you learn a little more about soem of the country we live in, so get set to impress with your tasks this week.
Remember good places for information finding and resources could include - talking with parents and relatives, books, atlases, internet, travel agents....
Teams will be announced Monday afternoon and the race will begin. Please find below a list of the tasks for the week, the "road block" challenge will be announced when teams are announced Monday afternoon! Work is all due for presentation and marking on Friday morning.
Remember - a champion team will always beat a team of champions - so use the strengths of all those in your team.

The Amazing Race - Task Sheet Outline

The Amazing Race

Sneak into Schleich

Hi room 13,

It was the most amazing day of the journey for me, because we were going to visit the factory of the toy animals that I collect since I was four: Schleich. The manager of the factory showed us around and chatted away while we tried to stop our brains from exploding with all the new info. At the end of the day we had learned the following about the Schleich toy animals.
First a wax model is made from an older wax model by changing the features and expressions or by starting from scratch. Then it is send away to be checked by experts like zoologists and breeders. (Because they once made an elephant with too many toes ;-)) If the experts say “No, the head is too big” or “The legs are too long” it gets changed.
Once it is finished to perfection a steel mold is made in different steps. This is used to make a first plastic model to be painted and send to an expert again. If it is okayed many more models are made and send to Tunisia to be hand painted.
You can buy them all over the world, also in Dunedin in “Toyworld” and “K-Mart.”

Yours truly,
Hanna.

The Amazing Race . . . .

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays and making the most of the nice weather when we have it and getting out and about. Things are getting organised for this terms teamwork/homework challeges of the "Amazing Race". If you would like to be a team leader for this "race" please state why you should be considered for one of these roles and email it to me andrewjsloan@yahoo.com or post it as a comment on the bottom of this posting. Remember all the s,kills and qualities we talked about that make a good team leader??
Enjoy the rest of the holiday and I am looking forward to seeing you all back for term 4 next week.

Mr Sloan